The court affirmed that under Section 44(1)(c) of the PMLA, the Special Court is designated to try both scheduled offences and money laundering offences, emphasizing legislative intent for discretion in case transfers.

JUDGMENT :

(Tirthankar Ghosh, J.) :

The present revisional application has been preferred by the petitioners challenging the order dated March 24, 2021 passed by the Learned Metropolitan Magistrate, 4th Court, Calcutta in connection with G.R. Case No. 175 of 2012 (arising out of Shakespeare Sarani P.S. Case no. 12 of 2012) under Sections 420/467/468/471 of Indian Penal Code wherein the learned Magistrate was pleased to allow the application dated 12.12.2018 filed by the Complainant/Enforcement Directorate and directed for appearance of all the accused persons for committing the case to the Special Designated Court as per provisions of Section 44(1)(c) of PMLA, 2002.

2. The relevant part of the application under Section 44 (1)(c) of PMLA, 2002 filed by the Complainant/ED is as follows:

“5. That the applicant submits that CBI, BS&FC, Kolkata initially registered 5 FIRs (viz RCBSK 2011E003 dated 31.05.2011, RCBSK 2011E0004 dated 31.05.2011, RCBSK2010 E0005 dated 30.09.2011, RCBSK2010E006 dated 30.09.2011 and RC06/E/2011 dated 30.11.2011) and subsequently filed 5 charge sheets and one supplementary charge sheet viz Charge Sheet No. 8/2012 dated 28.06.2012 and Supplementary Charge Sheet dated 05.02.2013, Charge sheet No. 07/12 dated 20.06.2012, Charge sheet No. 09/12 dated 27.07.2012, Charge Sheet No. 10/12 dated 27.07.2012 and Charge sheet No. 11/12 dated 24.09.2012 on the basis of complaint made by Shri Milap Kapoor, the then General Manager, Indian Overseas Bank, Regional Office, 119, Park Street, Kolkata, Shri Durga Prasad Gupta, the then Dy. General Manager & Regional Head, Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC), Salt Lake, Sector-I, and Smt. Jayati Chakraborty, Dy. General Manager & Branch Head, Mid Corporate Group, IDBI Bank Ltd., Shakespeare Sarani Branch, Kolkata against the M/s Prime Pulses Ltd. M/s Prime Impex Ltd and others u/s 120B, r/w 420,467,468,471 of IPC. The matter of all the above discussed five charge sheets are pending before the Ld. 21 Metropolitan Magistrate, Kolkata. Further Central Bureau of Investigation, Economic Offence Wing, Kokata, CBI, EOW, Kolkata registered three FIRs viz RC 06/E/ 2011-Kol. Dated 30.11.2011, RC 05/E/2011-Kol dated 14.09.2011 and RC4/E/2012 dated 24.02.2012 and subsequently filed 3 charge sheets viz charge sheet No. 08/12 dated 12.10.2012, Charge sheet no. 09/12 dated 30.11.2012 and charge Sheet No. 11/12 dated 31.12.2012 on the basis of complaint made by Shri Durga Prasad Gupta, the then Dy. General Manager & Regional Head, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Salt Lake, Sector-I, Kolkata, Shri K. B. Nageswar Rao Asst. General Manager, Bank of India, Kolkata Large Corporate Branch (BOI, KICB), 5 BTM Sarani, Kolkata-700001. and Shri Jayant Kumar Sanyal, the then Executive Director, M/s PEC Ltd. at Kolkata (A Govt. of India Enterprise, under Ministry of Commerce and Industry) against M/s Prime Impex Ltd., M/s Mehul Overseas Pvt. Ltd. and others u/s 120B, ?/w 420,468,471 of IPC. The matter of charge sheet No. 08/12 dated 12.10.2012 & Charge sheet no. 09/12 dated 30.11.2012 are pending at before the Ld. 21st Metropolitan Magistrate, Kolkata. The matter of charge Sheet No. 11/12 dated 31.12.2012 is pending at 22nd Metropolitan Magistrate, Kolkata. Two separate FIRs viz. FIR No. 138 dated 18.05.2011 & FIR No. 12 dated 11.01.2012 were also registered by the Kolkata Police on the basis of complaint filed by Lalit Kumar Singhal Vice President, Yes Bank Ltd. 19, Camac Street, Kolkata-17. and J. K Ramakrishna Rao, Regional Collection Manager- East, DCB Bank Ltd. Gariahat Road Kolkata respectively against the Directors of M/s Prime Pulses Ltd., Ms Prime Impex Ltd. Subsequently cases were transferred to Kolkata Police Banking Fraud Section (BFS) and two separate charge sheets bearing no. 122/2016 dated 24.08.2016 before Ld. Chief metropolitan Magistrate, Calcutta and charge sheet bearing no. 27/17 dated 21.03.2017 before Ld. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Calcutta were filed by the Kolkata Police (BFS). Thus the